THE SURVIVORS
The first woman Maya interviewed was named Tessa Harmon.
She was forty-two years old, a librarian from Portland, Maine. She had seen Dr. Vance for eighteen months, five years ago. She had dreamed about bridges. She had thought about jumping. And then, one day, she had stopped going to his office.
“I didn’t know why,” Tessa said. “I just… couldn’t go back. Every time I thought about his office, my skin crawled. I didn’t understand it then. I do now.”
Maya sat across from her in a coffee shop in Portland. Tessa’s hands were steady. Her eyes were clear.
“How did you escape?” Maya asked.
“I found another therapist. A woman. She asked me questions Vance never asked. Like, ‘What do you want?’ Not ‘What do you dream?’ Not ‘What do you fear?’ Just… what do you want.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I wanted to live.”
Maya nodded.
“Do you still dream about the bridge?”
“Sometimes. But now I wake up angry. Not scared. Angry at him for trying to take that from me.”
Maya wrote down Tessa’s words.
She interviewed twelve more women over the next two weeks.
Each story was different. Each story was the same.
Vance had found them when they were vulnerable. Divorce. Illness. Grief. He had offered comfort. He had asked about their dreams. He had encouraged them to explore their darkest thoughts. And then he had pushed.
Some of them had pushed back. Left his practice. Found other therapists. Survived.
Others had not.
Maya carried their stories with her. In her notebook. In her heart. In the weight she felt every time she closed her eyes.
THE FAMILIES
The families were harder.
They came to her with photographs and tears and questions that had no answers. Why didn’t anyone stop him? Why didn’t the police listen? Why didn’t the licensing board investigate?
Maya had no answers. Only more questions.
She met Sarah Chen’s mother in a church basement in Worcester. The woman was small and gray and spoke in whispers.
“She was my only child,” the mother said. “I keep her room the way she left it. Her clothes. Her books. Her little statue of a cat. Sometimes I go in there and just… sit.”
“I’m sorry,” Maya said.
“People say that. ‘I’m sorry.’ It doesn’t help.”
“I know. But I mean it.”
The mother looked at her.
“You wrote about her. In your article. You said his name. You told the truth.”
“I told what I knew.”
“It’s more than anyone else did.”
Maya reached across the table. Took the woman’s hand.
“I’m going to keep telling it. Until everyone knows. Until he can’t hide anymore.”
The woman nodded.
“Then you’re the daughter I never had.”
Maya left the church basement with tears in her eyes.
She called Danny.
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Do what?”
“Meet with their families. Hear their pain. Carry their grief.”
“Then don’t. No one’s making you.”
“I’m making me. I started this. I need to finish it.”
“Then finish it. But don’t forget to take care of yourself too.”
Maya hung up.
She drove to the next interview.